Last August, Axel Pecero was in Burbank for a conference. He traveled frequently for his work as a foster youth advocate.

He was walking back to his hotel from a concert when Burbank Police stopped him and ran his ID.

A warrant he had for driving with a suspended license from several years ago popped up. It listed a $10 bail amount.

“They took me to the station because of that ten-dollar warrant,” Pecero said.

Burbank police released him hours later with a citation to appear in court later that month, a department spokesperson said. Pecero never made it — when he exited the jail, he said, immigration agents were waiting for him.

“As soon as I opened the door, Department of Homeland Security is literally right at the door. It was three of them. They were, like, blocking the entrance completely,” he said.

They arrested him, took him to the federal building in Los Angeles, and then to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County. Pecero began pursuing legal options to be released.

His case had urgency: Pecero has a 4-year-old — Ajay, short for Axel Junior.

“I could be deported. But I'm fighting my case,” he told LAist from Adelanto. “I have a son here that I'm fighting to stay with and be able to stay to help and support and raise.”

Pecero is one of tens of thousands of parents that have been detained under the current Trump administration. A new analysis by the Brookings Institution estimates that more than 200,000 children in the U.S. have been separated through detention under President Trump.

Pecero shares custody of Ajay with the boy’s mom. Ajay would frequently stay over with Pecero in his apartment near downtown L.A. — they’d go out to the park, or to eat, or play sports. They’d also hang out with Pecero’s younger brother, Isaac, who lived with Pecero.

Axel said Ajay would frequently hang out at his house near downtown L.A.

(

Courtesy Axel Pecero

)

Isaac Pecero said he was stunned when he had found out his brother had been detained.

“How would they try to deport him if he's been here way before he could, before he even remembered coming to this country? I found it unbelievable,” he said.

Isaac Pecero said after his brother was detained at Adelanto, he tried to make up for his older brother’s absence by taking Ajay on outings to the park and elsewhere.

“But we were missing something and that was my brother. It was sad when I had to tell [Ajay] like, ’Oh, I'm sorry, you can't see your dad.’ I didn't even know what to tell him when he was asking me where his dad was. I didn’t know what to say,” he said. “It was just heartbreaking because, you know, my nephew, me and my brother — we were the trio. Wherever we were at or whatever we were doing, as long as we were together, it was always fun, you know? We were the family.”

A former foster youth

Axel Pecero said he was brought to the U.S. from Mexico by his grandmother when he was three years old, and grew up around Los Angeles and the South Bay with various relatives. As a teen, he lived with his aunt. At 18, he left to live on his own.

“ It was rough. Six months later I had spent through all of my savings and then I was broke, and then couldn't pay for my apartment no more, so I ended up homeless,” he said.

He said he was arrested for trespassing; when it was time to renew his DACA status in 2019, he was denied, according to his immigration attorney.

Axel (right) with California state senator Caroline Menjivar. He said he wanted to work in policy.

(

Courtesy Axel Pecero

)

“I was young, I was dumb, I was just trying to survive out here by myself,” he said. “It was a journey trying to get all my life in order.”

A spokesperson for DHS said Pecero has pending charges including for drug possession, larceny and burglary. LAist could not locate court records in Los Angeles related to the burglary charge (court records show a drug possession charge was dismissed in 2020; misdemeanor charges related to a joyriding case were dismissed in January). When asked for more details, the DHS spokesperson said they didn’t have information about what jurisdiction the burglary charge was in.

Like the majority of people detained by ICE, Pecero has not been convicted of a crime.

Axel Pecero said his life changed after his son was born. He started attending Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, where a program for former foster youth connected him to resources and housing support. He joined a network of foster youth advocates, landing work with California Youth Connection and other organizations. Pecero traveled around the state and to Washington D.C. to testify on behalf of kids who’ve been in the foster care system.

He said at the time he was detained, he wanted to get his bachelor’s.

“I was doing policy work and I wanted to do policy work — that was the plan,” he said.

Axel, who was a delegate with the National Foster Youth Institute, would travel across the state and to D.C., to advocate for foster youth.

(

Courtesy Axel Pecero

)

Few legal options

In February, an immigration judge denied Axel Pecero’s bond to be released, citing him as a flight risk, according to his attorney. After seven months in detention, Pecero faced a choice: Leave the country and have a chance to come back to see his son in a few years. Or face deportation, and get barred from returning to the United States for 10 or 20 years, he said, even to visit.

By March, “ looking at at my circumstances, I opted for the voluntary departure,” Axel said. A judge granted it.

A week later, DHS put him on a bus to Tijuana, then he got a flight to Cancun, where his mother lives. He hadn’t seen her for 18 years.

A report by the Vera Institute found that voluntary departures among people who are detained have increased more than 10-fold under the Trump administration.

Before he left the U.S., Pecero saw his son Ajay one last time in an Adelanto visiting room.

“As soon as he saw me, he was crying. He ran into my arms. I picked him up, and he was crying, and I was crying too, you know? And he just said, ‘Dada,’ and he just came and he ran up to me, and I told him I missed him. He said he missed me, too. And I was like, "I love you, son’,” he said.

Starting over in Mexico 

Pecero is still getting used to his new surroundings in Mexico.

“ It's not like anything that I'm used to in the United States. So that’s a big change for me that I have to kind of get used to,” he said. “I’m leaving everything, my life, everything I had went to school for. My son, my friends, my family that I had out there.”

He said he’s been able to talk with Ajay more frequently now on Facetime, but it’s hard to explain where he is or what will happen next.

 ”He was telling me, like, ‘Dada, come home.’ And I was like, I was like, ‘I can't, son. Like, I'm in Mexico.’ And he's like, ‘Why?’ And I'm like, ‘It's because, like, I'm too far. I'm really far away.’”

For now, Pecero is searching for a job in the tourism industry, and he’s not sure if he’ll apply to school. He said he feels like he’s torn on moving ahead.

“It’s complicated because I’m trying to be present in where I’m at, but at the same time it’s hard because I’m like, OK, I don’t really know how long I want to be here just because I’m thinking of Ajay,” he said.

He fears making roots too deep in his new home, because it might create more distance between him and his son.

“It’s frightening because these are the years that he needs me the most,” he said. “Not being able to be there stresses me out because I can’t raise him how I would want to raise him.”